Greyhound Air

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Greyhound Air
IATA '	ICAO '	Callsign '
Founded		1996
Hubs		Winnipeg, Manitoba
Focus cities		Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg
Member lounge		none
Alliance		none
Fleet size		6
Destinations		Canada
Parent company		Greyhound Canada
Headquarters		Winnipeg, Manitoba
Key people
Website: N/A

Greyhound Air was a short-lived Canadian low-cost airline.

Launched by Greyhound Bus Lines using a fleet of Boeing 727's leased from the Kelowna Flightcraft company, the airline began service in July 1996. Its aim was to link major cities in Canada (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton, through a connecting hub in Winnipeg), then connect passengers with Greyhound bus service to smaller communities.

The airline was closed after the Canadian bus line was taken over by Laidlaw 14 months later in September 1997. It never approached profitablility, and flight loads were well below expectations. The anticipated synergies of the two modes of transportation were entirely absent. It seems the planners completely mis-read both their existing market and potential new customers.

To begin with, many bus terminals are located in central urban cores: most airports are some distance from those same downtowns, which made transfers for those connections onerous. Next, it seems the fly-bus connection did not appeal to either the demographic (income) or the psychographic profile of existing Greyhound clients (many rode the buses because they did not want to fly). Lastly, the routing through the Winnipeg hub was a disaster in trying to appeal to any cross-country air traffic. The appeal of lower fares was more than offset by what could only be called an inconvenient schedule.

The airline is perhaps best known for its infamous ad campaign featuring a Greyhound dog lifting its leg to urinate against the wheel of an airplane.